Microsoft my ass

[Aethian]

For some reason I pictured a little white-haired old lady, sitting in a la-z-boy and gently rocking as she gave non-commital answers for an hour before finally saying, "Honey, I don't even have a computer."

Add in one of her boys begging for pettings and you have pictured right.

[otakuneko]

Mom had them for almost a hour once before she said she didn't have a computer.

For some reason I pictured a little white-haired old lady, sitting in a la-z-boy and gently rocking as she gave non-commital answers for an hour before finally saying, "Honey, I don't even have a computer."

I feel ignored now. I've never gotten any of those calls. They don't seem to call my area code or something for some reason.

Then again we used to get the Fog Horn "You have won a vacation!" calls, along with the "Important credit card information" automated ones. Those made me unplug my landline for good a couple years ago and now I only go by my cell phone.

Yeah. I've never gotten one of these guys either. Then again, back when I had a landline I never answered the phone unless they talked to my answering machine.

Now I don't have a landline. But, I've never gotten one on my google voice number either. Shame. I'd love to get one of these guys on the phone and lure them into one of my virtual machines.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this and somehow they're managing to spoof the Microsoft contact phone number. I'm not sure how they do that but unfortunately it adds an air of legitimacy to their crap.

Caller ID is trivial to spoof. Unless you have an 800 number, you're getting what the other end wants you to see.

[Lady Legira]

It's funny but I don't think we've had one of these since I handed the phone over to my partner who was staying over for the weekend.

He used to work in Data Security, had contracts with government agencies and Microsoft and dabbled in some grey areas.

He immediately started asking the person why they wanted him to open this particular thing as it did this and why would you need to be in there... oh he's hung up.

Before that I strung one along for 3/4 of an hour. They must have thought I was blonde until I started asking very pertinent questions.

[retro]

What I don't understand is the persistent attempts. Look, I've call out your BS once so why do you keep calling up? For the fun of it?

[An Haddock]

Got one last night. Told him I was with the FBI and we were tracing the call. He couldn't hang up fast enough.

The funny thing is - they're getting smart. They're actually using a real Microsoft contact number (or at least a recording from Microsoft) for the called ID. I was talking to a friend of mine about this and somehow they're managing to spoof the Microsoft contact phone number. I'm not sure how they do that but unfortunately it adds an air of legitimacy to their crap.

I'll have to email my friend in the FBI and see if they can actually do anything or not.

[Jetfire]

I feel ignored now. I've never gotten any of those calls. They don't seem to call my area code or something for some reason.

Then again we used to get the Fog Horn "You have won a vacation!" calls, along with the "Important credit card information" automated ones. Those made me unplug my landline for good a couple years ago and now I only go by my cell phone.

[Kittykat]

LOL, I got one of these calls yesterday. The funniest part, is my Uncle is retired FBI and happened to be over. I just handed him the phone.

[raudf]

I've gotten calls that I suspect were scammers, but I didn't answer them. I might do that now and have a bit of fun when I'm bored. I've got a dictionary and I can access Urban Dictionary... might as well give 'em a broad education.

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

We used to get these calls at least once a week. Ugh.

The annoyance factor of the calls on their own was bad enough, but some of them would get abusive and swear at us when we called them out, and a couple even rang back to tell us off for being rude to them by hanging up when they were abusing us.

The last call was several months ago. Mum took the call, and handed it to me.

I asked for the caller's name, her supervisor's name, the number they were calling from and their company. I told her I knew it was a scam and that I was reporting it to several Government authorities, which I named.

She couldn't hang up quick enough... and I haven't had a call from them since.

[the lawsmeister]

I've had them call twice but both times I've been in the middle of bathing the kids or putting them to bed and have hung up.
My father and one of my uncles however are having a competition to see who can keep them on the phone the longest.
Dad is currently winning with 40 minutes though my uncle has received bonus points for getting the caller to swear when they realise that they've been busted.

Seem to recall a news story from a few years back where the person getting the call said they were busy and asked for a number to call them back on and they gave them one
They passed it on to the cops who were able to get the address from the phone company (it was a domestic number, not international) and make an arrest.
I'll have to see if I can track down the article online

[KatherineB]

What you should do is keep a book there specifically for this. Read as far as you can before they hang up, but once they do stop. Then when you get another call, pick up where you left off. See if you can finish an entire book in this way.

Ooh, what a good idea! I was getting sick of the start of Tale of Two Cities anyway...

Hee hee, so you fillibuster them! You should be a Senator or go into Parliment or whatever your country has!

*lol* Yup! It's fun listening to them try to interrupt. But when I get a roll, it's very hard to stop me...

[Estil]

I used to keep a book beside the phone and begin reading it at them. You see, they're not supposed to hang up unless they get caught out as scammers etc. But sadly the furthest I ever got was four pages in before they hung up. *sad sigh*

On the up side, since moving to a house without a landline phone, I haven't had a single call!

Hee hee, so you fillibuster them! You should be a Senator or go into Parliment or whatever your country has!

[Cooper]

When I first got the call I was suspicious, but strung them along until I looked up what this was about. (Funny how useful google could be.)

Once I figured it out, I started grilling them about /which/ computer it was (we have a desktop, four laptops, and a tablet which run Windows in the house), claiming I was writing down their instructions to do on the other computers, and then the conversation went a lot like this:

Him: Now do [this.]
Me: Done.
Him: Do you see [this?]
Me: Nope.
Him: Why not?
Me: I didn't do it.

If you look up scammers under Not Always Working they have tons of people trolling these guys.

[aulocksmith]

A friend of mine fell for this last week. Which is strange, considering that just before christmas, he got the same call and told them to f-off.

Anyway, he gets about 1 hour in to it with them, has granted them remote administrative access, and then decides to call me to ask about it. I nearly fell down laughing when I heard him start ripping in to them after I told him that it was a scam and to hang up on them. I think it was combination of all SCs on this site combined.

Unfortunately, by the time he'd called me, the damage had been done, and they had locked him out of his computer. Thankfully, being XP, a repair install, with a CLI command quickly restored access.

I don't think he'll be falling for that one again.

[Kit-Ginevra]

I let them talk me through the process...open window...click...etc...what do you see... I've got the page up... It's a warning about scammers-that someone will call you pretending to be from Microsoft.Do not give them your details.Contact the police...is this the site you were leading me to?
That normally shuts'em up